Let's Go RACKing!

So, I saw this last year around Christmas time and SOOO wanted to do it, but {hang head in shame} I was honestly too lazy.  I made the excuse that I didn't have enough time... BUT I DO!

RACK stands for RANDOM ACT OF CHRISTMAS KINDESS and our famiy has decided this is going to be a little Christmas tradition we are starting this year.

We made a whole list of things that we are going to do to show Random Acts of Kindess this season.

We did 25 Acts for the 25 Days of Christmas. We plan to leave a little Christmas note with each of our acts of kindness. I'm not recreating the wheel, so I'm using Cara Carrol's card that you can find on her blog here. Cara also has a list of what she did last year when she went RACKing :)

Here is our list for 2012:

1. Tape candy canes to ATM machines.

2. Tape coins to vending machines.

3. Take cookies to the librarians at our local library.

4. Take brownies to the local fireman.

5. Take doughnuts to the local police officers.

6.  We are doing two Christmas shoe boxes to ship overseas to one boy and one girl in need.

7.  Visit the nursing home and hand out Christmas cards.

8. Donate items to the animal shelter and visit the animals.

9. Take hot chocolate to Salvation Army people outside of Walmart.

10. Leave a gift in the mailbox for the mailman/mailwoman

11. Collect canned goods for those in need.

12. Put candy canes on cars

13. Leave a stack of children's books at the play area in the mall.

14. Anonymously pay for another family's dinner.

15. Donate clothes to FABRIK {they are teaming up with United Way to help teens in need}

16. Donate toys to those in need.

17. Take gifts to our neighbors.

18.  Donate coloring books and crayons to doctor's offices.

19. Adopt a class and bring them goody bags.

20. Donate coloring books and crayons to the church.

21. Push those random grocery carts back where they belong.

22. Bring breakfast for Caycen's babysitter.

23. Bring in breakfast for coworkers.

24. Visit the people working at CVS on Christmas Eve and gift them a gift since they can't be with their families.

25. Drop off Baker's Pride doughnuts at the local hospital and put them in the waiting room for the families and staff working on Christmas Day.

I am super excited about going RACKing and teaching my little man the importance of serving others and showing the love of CHRIST.

If you want to join us please let us know! And we would love LOTS of comments letting us know if you will be RACKing this year and also some encouragement as we get all of our stuff together to start RACKing!

I hope everyone has a BLESSED weekend!!!

Love,

The Darleys

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50th Day of School

Yesterday was our 50th day of school!!!

Thanks to Cara Carroll's AWESOME 50th Day Unit, we had a BLAST!

We came dressed in our 50s attire and we made paper poodle skirts for the girls that didn't have one. (I cut the poodles out on my cricut).  They were so stinkin' cute!

We watched a short video clip from United Streaming on the 50s and read the story "Long Ago and Today" to compare and contrast the 50s and today. 

We then used the cute craft to write one of the differences that we found interesting.

After lunch we had a sock hop. We did the limbo, freeze dancing (where everyone must keep dancing until the music goes off and they have to freeze, then if you move you're out- this was introduced to me by one of the kids haha), and then we had a dance off.  It was HOPPIN'!

We then completed a 50th day math book.

At the end of the day we talked about how a root beer float is made, then we made some for ourselves.

What a fun way to celebrate 50 days of being in school!!!

me and my co-teacher



me and Becki (another teacher on my grade level) YES... I had to make my poodle skirt and I cut a little too much off the back so I had to wear real pants underneath... whoops!!!

Have a great rest of the week!!! We have conference day today so I will be meeting with parents all day long :)

Amy



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Fall Festival

We had our Fall Festival last week since we aren't allowed to have Halloween parties at our school. 

We had a lot of fun! We made tiedyed t-shirts and make them into jack-o-lanterns.  The kids got to play tons of different games and get prizes and candy as well.

Cake walk:

Face Painting

Estimation Station

Place Value Duck Pond

Candy Corn Pick Up

Can Toss

Fishing for Prizes

Bean Bag Toss

Cookie Decorating

Pin the Face on the Pumpkin

Thanks to all the parents and middle school students who came to volunteer, our Fall Festival was a HUGE success!!! :) 

Hope everyone had fun doing all of their FALL activities!

~Amy



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Key Words with Addition and Subtraction

Hey Everyone!

This week we are learning about the key words to deciding whether we add or subtract in word problems.  The kids are having a blast!

We started out the week learning a little song:

They loved it so much that they just HAD to take it and sing it to their music teacher today too! :)

The rest of the week we will be doing task cards and picking out key words in word problems.  I teach inclusion so this concept is SUPER important for my kids to be able to solve word problems for the rest of the year.

You can get this song in printable form and a few posters, task cards, and even a quiz at my little Tpt store!

Have a wonderful week!!!

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SALE!!

Since its almost October, I've decided to throw a 20% off sale for the last two days of September in my TpT store! Go check it out!!!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Amy-Darley-38

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Behavior Management

This post is all about how I do behavior management in my classroom. In my last post I posted a picture of my behavior chart, which you can find in my WONDERFUL friend, Amanda's, Tpt store here for only $1. My room has a safari theme so this was perfect for my classroom.

Students come in each morning and start on green, which is "ready to learn". Throughout the day the students move down for negative behavior and they can move up for positive behavior. At the end of the day they fill out their behavior sheet with whatever color they end on. The behavior sheet is monthly and stays in their homework folder for the entire month. The parents sign the behavior sheet weekly. There is also a place in the back of the behavior sheet for students to write an explanation of why they moved their clips. It can be used as a positive note or even a negative note to the parents.

I also do a classroom store. The students earn tickets all week long for positive behavior. They also lose tickets when they have to move their clips down. My students work very hard to earn tickets. If a student has moved their clip down on the behavior chart and I tell them that they earn a ticket, they then have the choice to either take the ticket or move their clip up one spot for doing something good. I have only had a child take the ticket over moving their clip up, one time since my entire career of teaching. At the beginning of each school year, I really make a BIG deal when that first child decides to move their clip up instead of earn a ticket. At the end of the week they go shopping at the clad store where I have a 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 ticket drawer. They can choose to spend or save. I put pencils, erasers, toys, stickers, puzzles, books, classroom coupons, and lots of other things in the store.

You can find my cute classroom coupons here for $1:


Also, at the end of the day whatever students are all the way at the top of the behavior chart, which is "outstanding", earns a school stallion ticket. The stallion tickets are given out throughout the school. When a child earns one of these tickets they get to go to the front of the school and put the ticket in a huge box. Once a week the principal pulls a few names from the box to earn prizes. The kids really work hard for these.

I also give rewards for whole group behavior as well. We have what we call classroom points. We earn points by getting compliments from OTHER teachers in the hallway, at specials, when teachers or parents come in the classroom, etc. We vote as a class for a reward that we would really like for te classroom. My class this time voted to have extra outside time at recess with popsicles. My class has to earn ten points and then they get their reward. Some other rewards we've had are game day, hat day, funny sock day, cookies and milk, and the list goes on.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my behavior system! I would love to hear your ideas as well!!

I have created a "Where the Wild Things Are" themed behavior chart like the one you see above and it's only $2. Leave me a comment for a chance to win! I will use random.org to choose one person to win this behavior chart on Monday, October 1st! I am working to create a WHOLE classroom set with a "Wild Things" theme to it because I have had a lot of people say that they would love something like this. Stay tuned to see it soon :)

Have a great week!!
Amy

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Overwhelmed...

Ok, so I really do try to keep my posts positive... but can I vent a little?? We have been back in school for almost 3 weeks now and I am still SO OVERWHELMED!!! Our state has moved to common core, which I think is great, but the units that they've made for us to use are a little crazy for 2nd graders. Does anyone else thing that Fudge-A-Mania is too hard for the average 2nd grader to understand? I have a few that seem to love the book, but the rest of my class just doesn't get the humor in it. I would love to hear any suggestions on what you do during your reading block and small groups with the common core standards.

On top of school starting, we have had hardly any planning time. Most of our plannings have been filled with meetings and trainings. This has been hard for me. I am also doing the inclusion class for the first time ever and trying to get the hang of that.

On a positive note... my class is SUPER sweet!!!! I do have a very different group of kids. I have 5 sped, 4 being tested for sped, 5 gifted, 2 being tested for gifted, and then the rest of the class are average. I have 23 kids in all. I have kids reading on a kindergarten reading level and then I have kids reading all the way at an 8th grade reading level. I have a HUGE gap!!!! Any suggestion on differentiation? I feel like I am having to plan 3 different lessons in every subject to meet the needs of all of my students.

I did take a few picture from my classroom to share...

Sorry that this is all I have time for... I promise I will do another post VERY soon and link up with my behavior system :)



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Back to School

Well everyone, my SUMMER is officially OVER :(

We started back today. I will try to update more often, especially since I will be getting back into the swing of things.  I am going to take pictures of my classroom to show some of the ways I organize my classroom this week.  So be on the lookout for my next post.  Until then, have a WONDERFUL week!!!

Amy

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